Murder on the Quai

Aimee Leduc Investigations #16

by Cara Black

The world knows Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc, heroine of 15 mysteries in this  New York Times  bestselling series, as a  très chic , no-nonsense detective—the toughest and most relentless in the City of Lights. Now, author Cara Black dips back in time to reveal how Aimée first came to inherit Leduc Detective . . .

November 1989: Aimée Leduc is in her first year of college at Paris’s preeminent medical school. She lives in a 17th-century apartment that overlooks the Seine with her father, who runs the family detective agency.

But the week the Berlin Wall crumbles, so does Aimée’s life as she knows it. First, someone has sabotaged her lab work, putting her at risk of failing out of the program. Then, she finds out her aristo boyfriend is getting engaged to another woman. And finally, Aimée’s father takes off to Berlin on a mysterious errand. He asks Aimée to help out at the detective agency while he’s gone—as if she doesn’t already have enough to do. But the case Aimée finds herself investigating—a murder linked to a transport truck of Nazi gold that disappeared in the French countryside during the height of World War II—has gotten under her skin. Her heart may not lie in medicine after all—maybe it’s time to think harder about the family business.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, France, Crime, Mystery Thriller, War, Audiobook

316 pages, Paperback

First published June 14, 2016

About the author

Cara Black frequents a Paris little known outside the beaten tourist track. A Paris she discovers on research trips and interviews with French police, private detectives and café owners. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, a bookseller, and their teenage son. She is a San Francisco Library Laureate and a member of the Paris Sociéte Historique in the Marais. Her nationally bestselling and award nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation series has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German and Hebrew. She received the Medaille de la Ville de Paris for services to French culture. She's included in the GREAT WOMEN MYSTERY WRITERS by Elizabeth Lindsay 2nd editon published in the UK. Her first three novels in the series MURDER IN THE MARAIS, MURDER IN BELLEVILLE AN MURDER IN THE SENTIER - nominated for an Anthony Award as Best Novel - were published in the UK in 2008 and MURDER IN THE LATIN QUARTER comes out in the UK in 2010. Several of her books have been chosen as BookSense Picks and INDIE NEXT choice by the Amerian Association of Independent Bookstores. The Washington Post listed MURDER IN THE RUE DE PARADIS in the Best Fiction Choices of 2008. MURDER IN THE LATIN QUARTER is a finalist for Best Novel Award from the NCIBA Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.

She is currently working on the next book in the Aimée Leduc series.

Reviews

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of the Aimée Leduc detective novels, but this one took me a while to get into.

A prequel to the series, this book gives us a 19-year-old Aimée struggling in medical school, losing her boyfriend to another woman -- and deciding on her own to take up an investigation that her father cannot handle due to urgent business surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In the process, Aimée winds up witnessing two murders that bring her into the purview of former Nazi collaborators and Resistance alike ... and we see a subplot related to World War II as well.

I didn't feel like this book and its mystery was as tightly constructed as it might have been. However, we do get to see Aimée's back story -- how she gets her dog, Miles Davis, how she meets computer genius René ... the whole shebang. I enjoyed it far more on that level than for the mystery itself.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 15th Aimee Leduc mystery is set in the late 1980's, going back in time to explain how Aimee first became a private detective. Flashing back to Vichy France and a gruesome crime connects to events in Paris, resulting in Aimee deserting her med school studies and working to find the connection which will solve the crimes. More about Aimee's mysterious mother is explained. A great way to continue one of my favorite series by going back in time.

[Kathe]

I always make a point of reading series in order. This time, at the library, I picked up a volume in a series I've been meaning to start and lucked out - it's a prequel, so the fact that it's labelled number 16 in the series means nothing. In fact, it sets up the characters.

I will continue with the series on the basis of this one - it's not as grabby as some other series I've read, notably the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths, but it gets bonus points for the setting, Paris, and the characters, including a dog called Miles Davis, are interesting. The ending is sudden and sad - I'll say no more about that.

Since this book is set in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, it's fun to look back at the technology of the times, or lack thereof. Fax machines? I remember fax machines - vaguely.

Oh, and one fun auto-correct thing: a photo in a Plasticine case? Hmmm... I think they meant plasticized....

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like this book. The characters were not believable nor were their actions. How does someone traverse France with the speed and diversity of locations, as does Aimie, given the inclement weather, an assassin in constant pursuit, and changing methods of inadequate transportation? And while accomplishing that impossible task, Aimie is attending medical school? Come on. She also manages to recruit accomplices after one quick meeting. The interjection of the occasional French phrase was annoying as was the designer name dropping. Needless to say, I will not be reading any more Cara Black.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Predictable, bland, blah. Too many characters, most without personalities. Not one star because the writing itself was decent.

[Elizabeth Theiss Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inveterate Francophile and crime novel buff that I am, it was impossible not to love this book. Cara Black has an ear for French cultural nuance, though her heroine, Aimee LeDuc is frank in a way that is tres Americaine. This is the seminal story of how Aimee follows in her father’s foot steps to become an investigator with the family franchise. The plot involves a waylaid shipment of Nazi gold in 1942, the men who waylaid it, and a series of murders that follow.

[Mac Daly · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a big fan of the Aimee Leduc series, I was happy to read this entry to find out how Aimee got her start as an investigator. At nineteen, Aimee is struggling in med school and has just been betrayed in a relationship. When a distant relative comes to her father's investigative firm asking for help, he turns to Aimee for help as he has to pursue another case.

She soon finds she has a talent for investigation and soon discovers the case is more complicated than she thought. Despite being shot at, dismissed as being to young and not getting a lot of help from her contacts, she keeps investigating. In the meantime, her father is on the trail of Aimee's mother who abandoned the family years before.

Even if I hadn't been a fan before, this one would have made me one.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is the 16th book by publication date but is actually the first in chronological order. This book tells the story of how a 19 year old Aimee Leduc, who is the adult protagonist of a fifteen book series, goes from med school to full time private detecting. I've not read any of the other books in the series and figured that this prequel, for lack of a better term, would be a good entry point.

Aimee lives in a Paris apartment with her father and grandfather while she struggles in the highly competitive environment of first year medical school. Both her grandfather and father are former members of the Paris police and Aimee occasionally helps out with office work in the private detective firm that her grandfather started and that her father now runs. When a female relative, previously unknown to Aimee, comes to ask for help in the investigation of her father's murder, a request that Aimee's own father oddly declines, Aimee takes it upon herself to look into the matter. Her motives for doing so are fueled by her belief that this strange, new relative can tell her about the mother who abandoned her and her father when Aimee was only eight years old.

The book is set primarily in 1989 Paris with Aimee trying to piece together the events that led to the execution style murder of an elderly man. When this murder is followed by a second murder with the same M.O. the trail of clues starts to lead back to another set of events that happened in the French countryside in 1942. Flashback chapters are used for the events in 1942 and I found I was more interested in the past storyline than in the present one involving Aimee.

One issue I had with the story was how easy it was for Aimee to get the information she needed and how unrealistic it was for a 19 year old girl to move through a very adult world and successfully bluff people 2, 3, and sometimes 4 times her age. After writing fifteen books with an adult version of Aimee perhaps the author didn't realize that she was writing a novice 19 year old version of her in the same way. This 19 year old girl manages to unearth the truth behind secrets characters have kept for 40+ years...and she does it in a matter of three or four days. It was just a bit hard to believe.

That said, I did enjoy the mystery of the events during WWII, and the way the past was juxtaposed with the present. I'm just not sure I was intrigued enough by the protagonist or any of the secondary characters to read more of the series.

[Elena Hartwell]

This is a prequel to Black's Aimee Leduc series. I haven't read any of her other books, but found it fine to read this first. The writing is interesting and the story complex. The author uses third person multiple in two different time periods, 1989 and 1942. In my opinion she's mostly successful with those shifts. The story is slow, this is not a fast paced thriller. There is on-the-page violence, but it's not too graphic. Probably not a good choice for cozy readers. The descriptions of Paris are enjoyable, as are the other locations, making it an "exotic" book for Non-European readers. I found her choice to throw random words in French into the prose and dialogue distracting. We understand the characters are speaking French, we just get to read it in English, so having occasional words in French just felt jarring. This was especially true for me in dialogue, it came across as verbal tics. The protagonist is a little foolish, but she's young, so I would guess it's setting up her arc to becoming a professional Private Eye.

[Valerie Campbell Ackroyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book in my favorite bookstore in Santa Fe. Reading the flyleaf, I realized that although this is #16 in a series I have never read (more on that later) the story was actually a "prequel" to it, the Aimée Leduc series. I thought, "Well, let's see if I like the prequel and then I will know whether I want to get into the series." I loved it.

The story, set in 1989 with flashbacks to 1942, opens with an old man being murdered on the, well, like the title said, on one of the quais of the Seine. In the next chapter we are introduced to Aimée, a young pre-med student at the Sorbonne, who has just discovered that her lover is engaged to another woman and that someone has sabotaged a key lab in one of her courses. Med school is ruthless, few students advance, and her instructor warns her she's on the verge of being kicked out.

Aimée slouches home to discover her father, who owns a detective agency, in conversation with a woman, Elise, begging him to investigate her father's murder, who we surmise is the old man who was shot on the quai. And who also happens to be related to the Leducs. Aimée's father is reluctant to take the case as he is headed off to Berlin to get some mysterious Stasi files - the Berlin Wall has just fallen - before they are destroyed. He tells Aimée they are for a case he is working on but we later discover that he's looking for files on Aimée's mother who was a terrorist working for various dubious countries and who abandoned her and her father in Paris ten years previously. Aimée wants the agency to take Elise's case because she thinks Elise might know something about her mother; her father has never told Aimée anything about her. So Jean-Claude Leduc heads off to Berlin and Aimée decides to take the case herself.

Armed with what her father has taught her about investigation, she worms her way into several dubious and dangerous places, discovers information relating to Nazi gold that disappeared in the French countryside in 1942, is attacked and shot at and ultimately solves the case, bidding, in the end, adieu to medical school. Oh and we also get snippets of what happened with the Nazi gold in 1942. And we also are witnesses to what happens in Berlin with Jean-Claude's search for Aimée's mother. All this in 316 pages (in paperback.)

I loved Aimée, she's spunky, wild, her story took me all over Paris without romanticizing it in the least. But still making it so that as I read, I kept thinking "I hope, HOPE that lockdown ends in September and I can get back there again!" The storyline is extremely complicated though. I felt I should have made a chart of the characters and who fit where, rather like Aimée finally does almost at the end of the book. I did pick the right murderer halfway through though; it's rather Agatha Christieish in terms of who the murderer turns out to be. Very satisfying in the end.

And so I determined that I would definitely be reading the first in the Aimée Leduc series, written in 1998, called "Murder in the Marais." And here is where I confess that I have WAY too many books on my Kindle. As I pressed the "buy" button on Amazon, a message appeared "You already have this title." Huh? So, the good news is I already have the book, the confusing news is I have no idea when or why or if I bought it or it was a freebie. Definitely the sign of a bibliophile :)

[Jack Laschenski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thing up loose ends!

Amy's father is murdered on the last page.

She leaves medical school and becomes a detective.

The ghosts of WWI nazis and collaborators show up.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75. Visit to Paris is always a treat.

[Bonnie]

Aimee Leduc is in her first year of college at Paris's preeminent medical school. She lives in a 17th century apartment that overlooks the Seine with her father who runs the family detective agency. The year is 1989 and the Berlin Wall crumbles and so does Amiee's life. Someone has sabotaged her lab work and it puts her in risk of failing out of the program. Then she finds out her boyfriend is getting married to another woman. Finally, her father takes off for Berlin on a secret errand. He asked Aimee to help out while he is away. She starts investigating a case involving a murder linked to a transport truck of Nazi gold that disappeared in the French countryside during the height of World War II. Paris is described as the fascinating place it is and local customs and culinary delights are described. This is the sixteenth book to be written by Cara Black and it is a wonderful read.

[Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is change all over Europe as this book opens. The Berlin Wall has collapsed, the Soviets have dragged their defeated army out of Afghanistan and back to Moscow. Aimee Leduc is in her first year of medical school, cramming for exams. Her father has to rush to Berlin for something mysterious connected with Aimee's long-absent mother. He makes the mistake of asking Aimee to look into a couple of details surrounding the disappearance of a man who may be a relative, and who may have known the woman Aimee is desperate to know about. In her inimitable way, Aimee begins to connect bodies fished out of the Seine, near where she lives, and events that happened during the German occupation in WW11. When gold enters the scene it brings with it greed and avarice. When that gold is German, it brings with it intense danger and the need for secrecy on the part of those who found it. The story centers on how, for want of a better term, the gold was laundered. But with bodies turning up it is apparent that someone wants in on the filty lucre, or else. It was a relief to learn that Aimee's Saint Laurent jacket came from the bottom of the barrel at the flea market at Clignancourt. This was a much tighter plot-line than is usual in Cara Black's books, and there was virtually none of the label-dropping that is so repetitive and tiresome in the previous episodes. Rene is a new arrival on the scene. Murder on the Quai is a prequel to the later books, to say more would spoil the journey of discovery for other readers. Highly enjoyable.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is a prequel, set about 10 years before the actual first Aimee Leduc novel. So, this one should really be read first. Goes back in time with WWII on a border town at the Vichy line. My only quibble was that when I looked up this town, it actually wasn't where it was supposed to be set but much farther north, so it made me question Black's historical research, which I've admired up to now. But the story was enjoyable and informative just the same.

[Gloria Feit · Rating 4 out of 5]

After 15 Aimee Leduc mysteries, Cara Black turned her attention backward in time to the start of Aimee’s career, providing a back story to her beginnings as a detective, and introducing some of the basics which inhabit subsequent novels, namely how she met Rene Friant, her partner in Leduc Detective, and acquired Miles Davis, her bichon frise. At the time, Aimee was a first-year medical student, hating every moment.

Then one day while Aimee was in her father’s office, as he was about to leave for Berlin to obtain the Stasi file on his renegade wife, who had disappeared years before, a distant relation asks him to find a young woman who perhaps was the last person to see her father before he was murdered. Instead, Aimee takes the case on herself as her father had refused to do so before he left.

From that point on, all the attributes of an Aimee Leduc mystery flow: Aimee getting into all kinds of danger; all the flavor and smells of Paris streets and neighborhoods; the give-and-take between Aimee and her godfather and high police official Morbier; Aimee’s passion for discounted fashion clothes; among other common features of the series. Since it was her first case, the progress is not as smooth as future investigations, as she stumbles and learns, but unquestionably the book is recommended as an introduction to her subsequent adventures.

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Murder on the Quai is the first book by Cara Black that I have read. The book left me flat. Perhaps, I am not the target audience for this author.

I found the book too cliched. The book is set in France as the author repeatedly pounded into the text... like a jackhammer. The ubiquitous French references became off-putting as if the author were name-dropping. Black left me with the impression of "Look where I have been; look what I know." The author dumps French vocabulary into the text like McDonald's dumps fries into oil vats. A little veneer of the French language and locations sets the ambiance without overdoing it. Black has not mastered the subtlety of ambiance. Subtlety is the difference between crepes topped with a slight vanilla nutmeg sauce near the Gare de Lyon and pancakes slathered in faux maple syrup at IHOP.

The Nazi-gold / treasure plot genre has been overdone as a plot device. Marie McSwigan (Snow Treasure) and Robert M. Edsel et al. (The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History), have done the Nazi-gold /treasure plot better. Others, like Troy Kennedy Martin's (Kelly's Heroes), have not developed this genre as well as Black. With all the tragedy of WWII, greed seems to be a minor motivational footnote.

There were some scenes I enjoyed. However, overall, the plot did not keep my undivided attention.

[Cathy Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who's followed Aimée Leduc throughout the course of her many investigations, this prequel is a welcome addition to the series, since it does answer several questions: How did Miles Davis join the family? How did she meet René? What did she do before she became a private investigator? For anyone who's brand-new to the series, Murder on the Quai will be the perfect starting point. To be honest, I wondered how Black was going to follow up Aimée's first outing as private eye/mother in Murder on the Champs de Mars. Aimée has a penchant for getting into danger, and there are bound to be some readers who think she should stay in the office and out of the line of fire. This prequel avoids this issue for now, but it will be interesting to see how Black deals with it in future books.

Murder on the Quai is fast-paced, and the occasional "flashback" chapters to 1942 up the tension and suspense. Who's killing these old men? Why? And... what happened to all that gold? This latest book by Cara Black is a first-rate whodunit that showcases Aimée's natural deductive talents. She does make mistakes, and even though she is intuitive, she is a rookie after all. It's going to be fun to see which direction Black takes her series in next!

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Readable but not unstoppable. This book did not grab me and carry me breathless through 328 pages, but I got there eventually, just at a more leisurely pace.
The book's saving grace was the WWII flashbacks which were just interesting enough to keep me engaged. I am not much of a fan of erstwhile med-student, Aimee Leduc, but I am glad that it was this one that I picked up as I gather it is the one that goes back to her beginnings as a Private Detective in Paris.
The settings were evocative of the sights, sounds and smells of the varying Paris neighborhoods, which was a nice touch. However, I didn't think much of the characterizations...I felt they were too shallow and superficial to allow me to believe they could ever be real in any environment or time period.
The plot follows the deaths of four former farmers from provincial France, now living in rich style in Paris, who are murdered after being involved in killing some German soldiers during WWII and a subsequent theft of Nazi gold from a transport truck which they, extremely unbelievably, sank in a flooded river, but which was not discovered for over 40 years!
The murderer was rather mundane and did not really create a sense of drama when revealed, ironically! All-in-all, I will give this series a miss.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: 1989, Paris France. Aimée Leduc is in her first year of college at Paris’s preeminent medical school. She lives in a 17th-century apartment that overlooks the Seine with her father, who runs the family detective agency (this is the prequel to the Leduc's mystery books). The week the Berlin Wall crumbles, so does Aimée’s life. First, there is sabotage at school. Then, she finds out her boyfriend is planning to get engaged to another woman. Finally, Aimée’s father takes off to Berlin on a mysterious errand. Aimée finds herself investigating—a murder linked to a transport truck of Nazi gold that disappeared in the French countryside during the height of World War II. Will she continue with med school or drop out and work in the family detective business?

Pros: Liked the writing. It felt like you were there in Paris, walking the streets. The characters came alive, the surrounding shops were vibrant and Aimée could become a good friend. The plot moved quickly, if just a tad over the top at times.

Cons: Nothing significant.

Cover art: 4 out of 5. Does a great job of evoking Paris right off, with the hint of shadows and foreboding.

[Dana Clinton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Home still on crutch (just one!), still climbing the walls a bit from being a bit cooped up, digesting the sad news that my darling dog has an enlarged heart and is struggling (so 2 weeks or 2 years, no way to tell....)... clearly I needed a great mystery to cheer me up, and this new book by Cara Black, Murder on the Quai, was that book! I still have five books in this Aimee Leduc series to read, but I went ahead and tackled the newest one which in fact is a "prequel".... finally settling questions of how Aimee came to adopt her PI career, how she meets René, her fabulous intelligent dwarf partner, and some of the mystery surrounding her mother. But all this in the context of a very well conceived mystery happening in 1989 but all due to events that occurred in a little town deep in the French countryside during World War II. It is a plus for me to read about Paris in so much detail, too, although I think the setting is always done is such a fashion as to be charming to any reader. A fine way to pass so much free time!

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great prequel to Cara Black's Aimee Leduc series. As well as giving the reader a first glimpse of some of the characters found throughout the series, Murder on the Quai is also a look back at decisions made and bonds formed at Vichy, France in 1942 as well as the opening of the Berlin Wall, November 1989. If you are an Aimee Leduc fan, you'll love the book; if this is your first glimpse, you'll want to continue the adventure with the fifteen previous books, beginning with the 1999 Murder in the Marais.

[Rita Berk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Paris, Aimee Leduc is a continuing character as a private detective in Black's books. This one flashes back to Aimee's first experience in which she gets caught up in murders tracing their motives to WWII. Thrown into the mix is Aimee's hope to get information about her mother who disappeared when Aimee was a child. Aimee's life is in danger but she does not seem to take precautions. Fast-paced but lightweight.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

VERDICT: Fantastic prequel to the suspenseful series set in various Parisians neighborhood. Lots of historical elements enrich the smart plot, like the Berlin Wall and the German Occupation of France. Great way of presenting all the main characters of the series.

My full review is here:
https://wordsandpeace.com/2016/07/18/...

[Maurice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story line, tying present day with the war years in France.

[Jon Wilson]

DNF

[Luis Roman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since "Murder in the Marais" in 1999, the debut of Cara Black's chic and sexy Parisian private investigator Aimee Leduc, a question has hung over the series and Aimee's life: who was Sydney Leduc, Aimee's American mother, who abandoned her husband and child when Aimee was eight years old and about whom Aimee's father, Jean-Claude absolutely refused to speak, up until the day of his untimely death, in a bombing while he was conducting surveillance in Paris' Place Vendome. Over the course of fifteen books, Black has teased readers, dropping hints and bread crumbs for a frustrated Aimee to follow while she tries to achieve some form of closure over the greatest mystery of her life.
Finally, in the sixteenth Aimee Leduc investigation, Black pulls the curtain back, just a bit, to give the reader a hint of an answer to this monumental question. In her typically creative fashion, however, Black does this not by looking forward, but by looking backward, all the way back to 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Jean-Claude Leduc, Aimee's father, receives a disturbing call from a contact in the former East Germany. Now that the Wall has fallen, it's open season on the files of the Stasi, the East German secret police, and there are any number of interested parties searching for files relating to an American woman named Sydney Hartman. Aghast, Jean Claude immediately boards a train to Berlin, determined to fulfill a promise he made to his wife more than a decade before.
Meanwhile, we meet a young Aimee, eight years before "Murder on the Marais." In 1989, she's a struggling medical student who, when we meet her, has just had a lab experiment sabotaged by one of her ultra-competitive fellow students, and she is receiving no sympathy from her chauvinist professor. She's foundering, uncertain of herself and the choice she feels she's been pushed into in order to please her father.
Aimee wants to talk to her father about her school situation, but at the Leduc Investigation office, Jean-Claude is too busy preparing for the Berlin trip he won't discuss with Aimee to deal with her problems. Into the domestic drama stumbles Elise Peltier, who turns out to be a distant cousin of the Leducs. Referred by Commissaire Morbier, Aimee's godfather, Elise is frustrated by the police's stalled investigation into the murder of her father, Bruno, whose body was discovered on a quai by the River Seine, shot through the back of the head, execution style. Elise begs Jean-Claude for assistance, but he begs off, citing his trip to Berlin. He leaves and Elise turns to Aimee.
Aimee is sympathetic but noncommittal, until Elise mentions that she met Aimee when Aimee was a child, in the company of her mother, and she has family pictures she might be able to share if Aimee could help her. Naturally, Aimee is hooked and agrees to follow up on the only lead Elise has, a card for a club found on her father's body with just the first name of a woman, Candy. So commences Aimee's first case as an unlicensed, amateur private eye.
One of the hallmarks of Black's series is her ability to advance the narrative by shifting the perspective from Aimee to different characters throughout the story. In "Quai," the story begins with an older French man leaving a Paris restaurant after a difficult dinner with three old friends. He walks alone a few blocks, until he is picked up by an unlicensed "gypsy" cab, which carries him to the Seine River, to the quai, where he is bound, gagged, shot through the back of the head and dumped in the river. As the story progresses, Black flashes back to 1942, to a small village just on the border between free and occupied France. A group of village men, trying to stop flood waters from ruining the wheat crop the village is depending on to feed them, are confronted by a Nazi truck convoy, one which shouldn't be on the free side of the border. The French men overpower and kill four of the Nazi soldiers, but aren't able to secure the fifth one, who floats away in the nearby river. They investigate the Nazi truck and discover it's filled with gold.
As the investigation in Paris proceeds, Black also follows Jean-Claude to Berlin, where he meets an old colleague, a Nazi hunter who has a decided interest in the whereabouts of Jean-Claude's wife, who is apparently suspected of involvement in a number of terrorist actions, including collaborating with a Hezbollah leader in the West Bank. This contact offers to set Jean-Claude up to retrieve Sydney's Stasi files before any other interested parties can get their hands on them, in exchange for information on Sydney's current whereabouts. Jean-Claude made a promise that he would do anything to protect Sydney's secrets, and protect Aimee from learning those secrets, so he feels bound to accept that deal.
This look backward gives us a great deal of insight to Jean-Claude's relationship with Sydney: their oddly romantic first meeting, their whirlwind romance and marriage and the lengths Jean-Claude was willing to go to protect Sydney and protect Aimee from the truth about her mother.
Meanwhile, Aimee, a complete amateur with a forged P.I. license, dives into the investigation with both feet, and many of the elements that have become so familiar to fans of the series begin to take shape. Aimee's two dominant characteristics as an investigator are her resourcefulness and her absolute refusal to be denied when she sets her mind to something. Even on her first case, both those qualities are fully evident. Through her resourcefulness, Aimee is quickly able to track down the woman whose name was on the card found on the victim's body. That was, essentially, the job she was hired to do. She wasn't expected to catch the murderer, after all. This being Aimee, however, once she tugged on that thread, her natural curiosity combined with her determination to get more information about her mother, send her tumbling down a rabbit hole leading to fifty year old thefts, murder and vengeance.
Typically when the author of a series attempts a look backward at the history of the series' protagonist, readers can expect an explanation of how some of the familiar elements of the series came to find their place. Thankfully, Black does not deviate from the formula. Many of the elements of Aimee's life we have come to love show up here - how the bichon Miles Davis ended up in Aimee's life, Aimee's best friend Martine (a university student in 1989,) Aimee's cousin Serge, just studying pathology at that point, Aimee's famed flea market Chanel wardrobe and kohl eye shadow, all make an appearance.
No Aimee Leduc origin story would be complete without two elements: Aimee's partner, Rene Friant, and her godfather, Commisaire Morbier, Jean-Claude's ex-partner.
During the investigation, Aimee's pager (holy 1980's!) goes on the fritz. The repairman she gets referred to turns out to be Rene. They establish an immediate connection, as Rene displays his technical wizardry on Aimee's pager. In return, Aimee makes Rene her "date" to Martine's birthday party, where Rene proceeds to charm the whole crowd, while Aimee slips away to follow a lead on her case. In two shakes, Rene has become Aimee's technical consultant, hacking away into bank computers to uncover records that, of course, ultimately help solve the case. The familiar rhythm of Aimee and Rene is established early on and its plainly clear how their relationship became so close (if frustratingly platonic.)
Readers familiar with the series will look on Morbier's appearance in "Quai" with some sadness, given the most recent revelations about Morbier's part in covering up information about Jean-Claude's murder. Here, however, is the classically rumpled inspector, looking on Aimee almost as if she's still an eight year old, urging her to focus on her medical studies and trying to warn her off the investigation she's undertaken. You can see the great love between the two of them, which will only increase Aimee's eventual heartbreak.
Of course, any Aimee Leduc story would be incomplete without more evidence of Aimee's horrid taste in men, and Black doesn't disappoint. In 1989, Aimee is dating a fellow student, the son of an aristocrat doctor. Any notions of a future Aimee might have are quickly dispelled when the young man's sister informs Aimee (in a university bathroom, no less,) that Aimee's boyfriend is engaged and the family is throwing a party the next weekend. Sadly, Aimee's judgment in this area will not improve with time.
The story plays itself out, with Aimee doggedly pursuing answers which she uncovers, sometimes cleverly, sometimes luckily, until the final confrontation with the murderer. The resolution of the mystery is just the prologue for fans, though, who know what lies just ahead. As Jean-Claude concludes his business in Berlin, he has a meeting with Sydney herself, where he discovers she is much better informed about his life, and Aimee's, than he could have ever imagined, and she is sill as much in love with him as he is with her. She is still on the run, however, and she is whisked away from the meeting in an American diplomatic car(!) Jean-Claude returns to Paris, determined that his next surveillance job will be the last one he does for the shadowy group to whom he's been indebted since they helped him free Sydney from prison years before. Of course, he has no idea how prophetic that decision is.
Step by step, Black takes us through that tragic last day. A brief phone conversation between Aimee and her father, some upsetting words, her determination to meet him at the surveillance site and ultimately, the event that would alter the course of Aimee's life forever.
"Murder on the Quai" is another outstanding effort from Cara Black - a gripping mystery combined with elements of Aimee's back story that help us to better understand many of the events in the previous fifteen books. I'm looking forward to seeing how Black picks up the story.

[Wally Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to write about Cara Black's Murder on the Quai in such a way that it does not discourage mystery readers from picking up the book, which is a creditable effort, but also explains why I have difficulties with certain mysteries.

Murder on the Quai is Black's sixteenth Murder on the . . . series. It stars Aimée Leduc. This book, series readers tell me, is Aimée's backstory, how she evolved from medical student to private detective. Her father runs a private detective agency and he leaves Paris early in the story to go to Berlin where the Wall has just fallen. He wants to obtain certain files before the Stassi can destroy them. This subplot involves Aimée's mother who abandoned the family when Aimee was about three years old, and its resolution is, I presume, saved for another book.

In this one, the first chapter takes place in November 1989 Paris. An elderly rich man is murdered gangland style on—where else?—the quai after an expensive dinner with three rich friends. "You remember, don't you? It's your turn now," the killer tells the man just before he puts a bullet into the back of the man's head. The police have no leads and the man's daughter, Elsie, comes to Aimée's father for help. In a believable series of events, the father takes off for Berlin and Aimée takes over to investigate the one lead Elsie can offer.

Switch to Chambly-sur-Cher, November 1942, a dark and stormy midnight. The Cher river is rising. Villagers are pilling sandbags to prevent the water from flooding their fields. British planes have been bombing the railway line in Occupied France right across the river. Enter a German troop truck, lost on the Vichy side of the river. They want the French farmers to use their horse cart to pull the truck out of the mud. There are only five soldiers and one of the French young hotheads makes a move and before they know it there are four dead Germans, one missing in the river, and a truck with an interesting cargo.

Aimée, who spent much of her childhood following her detective father around and hanging out with her retired police detective grandfather, sets off to help Elsie as best she can. Which is pretty good. She is determined, intelligent, and a good liar when she has to be. It spoils nothing to tell you that there's another murder on the quai, the same M.O., and the new victim was one of the four wealthy men who'd had dinner together before the first killing. By the end of the book Aimée has assembled all the pieces into a coherent picture.

If this is the sort of mystery that engages you—a spunky young detective, a foreign setting, past events with contemporary consequences—then you should read Murder on the Quai. It held my interest all the way through. So if that's what you like, stop reading this right now!

Because I've decided this kind of mystery—and it's not alone—is a kind of fairy tale. It doesn't tell us how the real world works, which police procedurals tend to do. It invents a serial killer who leads a law-abiding, unexceptionable life who nurses a murderous streak for years. I'm not willing to suspend my disbelief. I believe that in the real world virtually all murder is unintentional or accidental and fueled by anger or drink or both, or it has a single target—the ex-wife, the unsympathetic boss. Finally, I prefer a book where the author is writing from the inside rather than from research (unless, of course, you can't tell the difference, which does happen).

Black "lives in San Francisco . . . and visits Paris frequently." I do not know Paris at all, and I am sure that she has correctly identified every street, every building, and every landmark. "A short walk under the bare-branched trees on the brightly lit Champs-Élysées, then right past the tiny art cinema, Le Balzac, one of her premed Friday night haunts; down narrow, winding rue Lord Byron, named for the poet who, according to her grand-pére, had never set foot here." I do not question the accuracy of this or other sentences like it throughout the book. But for some reason it sounds like research, not lived experience and I cannot tell you why. And I only noticed toward the end of the book when Aimée is running out of pages and I wanted to know what happened.

On the other hand, Val McDermid is quoted on the back cover, "So authentic you can practically smell the fresh baguettes and coffee." You should probably go with McDermid.

[Ernie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite liked the book. But it was based on being a fan and enjoying getting the back story. This is a flashback story.

Cara Black writes a series of detective murder mysteries based on different areas in Paris and a detective named Amy LeDuc. Amy's real job is computer security/detective work but in each episode she is drawn into a murder investigation. Her partner is a dwarf named Rene who is an expert with all things computers. She lives on Ile de Paris... an inherited residence. Her father was a policeman and she was raised with the police. He mother was an American who mysteriously left when she was 8. Her father raised her... along with the police force. Sadly, before the series began, her father was killed by a terrorists bomb after he had left the force and was working on some contract basis. Her mother and father are very mysterious and questions about them circulate in the background of the novels. ---- This novel answers some of those questions....

Its a curious story. Amy is a med student. Her father does not want her to be a detective. Amy doesn't like Med School. But she is finishing her first year. She is drawn into a murder investigation. Meanwhile her father has left for Berlin to tie up some loose ends. He doesn't tell Amy, but she finds out it is related to her mother's disappearance. Both story lines run in parallel. I thought they might join, but they do not. The father's story line is simply about the backstory. The Amy LeDuc storyline is about how she discovered she is a good detective, left med school, discovered her partner (Rene) and found her dog (Miles Davis).

I actually listened to this on tape. It was fun because the reader had a French accent. The text has a tendency to provide all the asides in French. The main points are English. I enjoy that since my level of French is simply to recognize the exclamations in French. But it would be distracting for someone who did not know any French.

I enjoyed it. I recommend it after you have read 4 or 6 of her earlier novels. They are quite fun.

[Jennifer Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book is the newest in a series of mystery novels by Cara Black, it is a prequel to the series, so we find out much more about Aimée Leduc’s back story, how she came to live in an apartment in a much-sought after location in Paris, how she acquired her dog, Miles Davis, and found her tech-savvy partner, René. Because the prequel is set in 1989, René is a whiz with pagers and new-fangled electronic gadgets, so it makes sense that he would eventually develop his magical skills with computers.

As the story opens, we meet an elderly man who takes a cab to his own death. He has just met a couple of old friends for dinner at a restaurant in one of Paris’ most luxurious neighbourhoods. The elderly man turns out to be a distant relative of the Leduc’s and his daughter brings the case to Aimée’s father, a detective. Aimée herself is preparing to enter medical school, but is not entirely happy with her career choice. She takes on the case when her father is called out of town on mysterious business related to the fall of the Berlin wall.

Aimée’s mother disappeared from their lives some years ago, and at first, Aimée hopes to glean some information about her from this distant relative. As time goes by, though, the case takes on a life of its own. She discovers a link between the murdered man and a small village in France where a shipment of Nazi gold went missing in 1942. As Aimée investigates further and the stakes become higher, her own life is put in peril.

While I think the plot and back story are certainly worth reading and discovering, I am curiously unaffected by Black’s writing. Perhaps it is related to a matter-of-fact tone that I don’t feel entirely comfortable with. On the other hand, maybe a reader learning about betrayals, murders, and Nazi gold shouldn’t feel too comfortable, even in 2025.